Vacuithe - wow, the green matcha looks amazing against the gray palate of your chawan. Yummy.Adam - is that a Deishi? and, was it from a TC SO?Looks super delish.Muadeeb - Beautiful blues! Caution on your first whiskings tho - the way the lip of the bowl turns out may make for a sloshy matcha session (but if you don't overfill - that may help). Hope you'll show us your results when you get all your gear and your matcha!

@ debunix: ahh, matcha is so delicious! And there's something so satisfying about consuming something so incredibly green, it's like I'm drinking the color green itself! I should probably try some matchas from other places sometime, but I've been so satisfied with o-cha's offerings that I haven't branched out yet. I usually order 3 different matchas at a time: Kiku Mukashi is my all-around favorite, nice mellow flavor and decent price; Kiri no Mori, a little bit cheaper, for when I am in the mood for something a little bit stronger and more bitter (in a good way), or if I *gasp* want to add a bit of warm milk and brown sugar (I know, blasphemy! It's pretty tasty though, and a little easier on an empty stomach than straight matcha); and finally, I always stick a Matcha Manten in the cart, and I use this for when I feel like I've had a day that deserves The Good Stuff.

Matcha and sencha in the same day? Why not? And now I'll have some oolong too I think. I live dangerously!

Now there is something I need to talk about. When I got this chawan, about a month ago, a few people said it was too small to whisk usucha and that I'd need a picnic-sized "nodate chasen" to do it right. Not knowing jack about matcha I searched the earth high and low and found at last the elusive nodate chasen shown here.

But, you know what? It's really not better at all... in fact, it makes a much less frothy cloud than the big one. I have three theories on this:

1) More prongs means more air bubbles hence bigger is better even if the movement is a little constrained.2) My big chasen was bought from a Japanese matcha company and it's supposedly high quality. The nodate is cheap, it was the only one I could find ... so maybe it's quality?3) Maybe I need to se it in a different way to get the most out of it-- is there a different way to whisk with the nodate chasen?

I don't know. Well, I'm just glad I have learned to whisk with the big one even though it's small bowl (I really like the size it feel so nice in my hands ...like it was made just for me Well, I'm not a very big person )

YUM!

One thing that I observed was that the prongs of the nodate were curly when I first got it but when I rinsed it for the first time the uncurled and they have not gone back, in contrast to this the large chasen was not curled when I got it... is that significant?

I was a little disappointed because I thought the little curls would make lot fo bubbles but apparently this uncurling is "normal" -- for some chasen.

Last, I have had problems with the matcha sticking to the bottom of the chashaku, to solve this I sanded it with 600 then 800 the 1200 sandpaper-- this worked like a charm!

Sanded with 1200 grain paper, no more sticking! It feels like silk to the touch.

I really enjoyed your post futurebird.I think your chawan is beautiful.I also love your reporting on sanding your chashaku! I've never done that, but now I'll consider it if I ever have too much matcha clingage.I got a collapsable chasen some time ago, which is small, I guess one could consider it nodate, and I've never liked it. It just didn't get the job done. So I'm feeling you on the mini chasen.BTW - all the chasen I've ever had that started curled ended up losing their curls pretty quickly.Cheers!